Bellacartwrightia sp.

43 minutes ago, Fossil-Hound said:

Also you may want to update your entries here to reflect Bellacartwrightia sp.: https://penndixie.org/tag/bellacartwrightia/ I noticed a number of images weren't showing up for me on the site. Not sure if they were deleted.

I can see them all. 

No problem viewing on my end, either. 

@Fossil-Hound , the sp. in Bellacartwrightia sp. just means species, that is to say, that the genus has been established as Bellacartwrightia, but that the species is not known. So your label should read as such.

Also, thank you for pointing out the mistakes in my article on the PD site. I had misinterpreted information I was given by Gerry Kloc, and I have asked it to be updated on the site, but am still waiting.

@DevonianDigger ok makes sense. So this could possibly be a new species or do you think it's just Bellacartwrightia whitelyi? When you get a moment please reach out to Gerry to see what he thinks as I would be very interested. Perhaps a detailed in depth analysis will need to be undertaken and I could certainly mail the specimen out to him if he wants. I wouldn't be surprised if this was an exact match with B. whitelyi. So for the sake of proper classification should I change the entry to Bellacartwrightia sp. or just keep what I have? I'm not sure that I can record an entry without the full species name. Thanks Jay. Hope all is well at PD and I look forward to taking your assistant on a dig in Utah for Cambrian trilobites.

I've been trying to collect them to try and get the species properly described, but they've been very difficult to find lately. I have a few so far, but we haven't hit a good patch for them in over a year. I had told Gerry a while back that I was going to try to collect enough to get them described, but it just hasn't worked out that way so far. 

There are considered to be a different species from the B. whiteleyi, they are just not formally described yet, so I would not keep it listed as such—even though we don't know what species it is, we do know it's not a B. whiteleyi.

"The [Bellacartwrightia sp.] is undescribed but has some characteristics similar to B. whiteleyi. It differs in the broad shape of the pygidium and wider spacing between the lappets." (Whiteley, Kloc and Brett, 2002)

21 minutes ago, DevonianDigger said:

I've been trying to collect them to try and get the species properly described, but they've been very difficult to find lately. I have a few so far, but we haven't hit a good patch for them in over a year. I had told Gerry a while back that I was going to try to collect enough to get them described, but it just hasn't worked out that way so far. 

 

There are considered to be a different species from the B. whiteleyi, they are just not formally described yet, so I would not keep it listed as such—even though we don't know what species it is, we do know it's not a B. whiteleyi.

 

"The [Bellacartwrightia sp.] is undescribed but has some characteristics similar to B. whiteleyi. It differs in the broad shape of the pygidium and wider spacing between the lappets." (Whiteley, Kloc and Brett, 2002)

Fair enough. @Fossildude19 @DevonianDigger what I did was renamed it to Bellacartwrightia sp. Well that's exciting news. I do side with what @Malcolmt said. This is definitely not a Greenops due to the axial lobe bumps but what to call it if it is a newly discovered species? Perhaps Bellacartwrightia kloci in honor of @GerryK or Bellacartwrightia wollinses. Maybe even Bellacartwrightia ricei (my last name is Rice). Speaking of Gerry, @GerryK would you be able to possibly confirm that this is a new species if I where to mail this one out to you for study?

When Lieberman and I described the species of Bellacartwrightia, we have some very good specimens from the Wanakah Shale and described B. whiteleyi. However, we did not have any good Bellacartwrightia at that time from the Windom Shale to describe it. Later when Tom Whiteley and I did "Trilobites of New York", we had a good specimen of Bellacartwrightia from the Windom and recognized it being different than the one from the Wanakah and labeled it Bellacartwrightia sp. If you have the book "Trilobites of New York", you can look at Plate 45 and see a B. whiteleyi and compare it to the Windom one on Plate 48. They are different when looking at the pygidium. The posterior border of B. whiteley is triangular in shape while the Windom species is more rounded.

11 minutes ago, GerryK said:

When Lieberman and I described the species of Bellacartwrightia, we have some very good specimens from the Wanakah Shale and described B. whiteleyi. However, we did not have any good Bellacartwrightia at that time from the Windom Shale to describe it. Later when Tom Whiteley and I did "Trilobites of New York", we had a good specimen of Bellacartwrightia from the Windom and recognized it being different than the one from the Wanakah and labeled it Bellacartwrightia sp. If you have the book "Trilobites of New York", you can look at Plate 45 and see a B. whiteleyi and compare it to the Windom one on Plate 48. They are different when looking at the pygidium. The posterior border of B. whiteley is triangular in shape while the Windom species is more rounded.

@GerryK would it help towards the classification if I mailed my Bellacartwrightia sp. to you? Perhaps my specimen matches the one on Plate 48 and then we'd have a confirmation that the species is indeed unique. It would be neat to see this new species properly classified. I know that Alastair and a few others have recovered them from Penn Dixie. Could this species be the B. jennyae (see attached) from the Windom Shale? Thanks Gerry.

I don't know of the B. jennyae being present in the Windom. I know it's described from the Centerfield and Onondaga LS. I can't see the lappets well enough to say for sure, but I don't see enough of an angle in the top of them to indicate B. jennyae.

@Fossil-Hound At this time it would be best to hold on to your trilobite. I'm currently working on another group of trilobites and don't have time to work on the Astropyginae. The trilobite is not a B. jennyae which only occurs in the Centerfield Limestone.

3 hours ago, GerryK said:

@Fossil-Hound At this time it would be best to hold on to your trilobite. I'm currently working on another group of trilobites and don't have time to work on the Astropyginae. The trilobite is not a B. jennyae which only occurs in the Centerfield Limestone.

Excellent thank you @GerryK Please let me know when you would like to proceed with research on the Astropyginae and I would be more than happy to take some additional up close photographs or mail it out. Hopefully I'll be back in New York to dig with @DevonianDigger sometime in the near future. I still need to buy your book off of Amazon or if you have a website you prefer me to purchase it from I can certainly do that. Thank you for all you do in the trilobite community.